Why a whelk...

I'm seeing very little on my American flist about the Middle East conflict, and just out of a cultural interest I'm wondering what's being reported over there. Could anyone enlighten me?

For the record, tonight's Channel 4 news reported the following:
750 Palestinians killed, over one third of those were children
Over 3000 wounded, again, over 1000 children
Israel taking the US abstention on the ceasefire as go ahead to keep bombing Gaza, Israeli forces keeping UN aid from arriving, not allowing ambulances in to treat the wounded for up to 4 days and denying all knowledge, last week allegedly evacuating several Palestinian families into a one-family house, only to bomb it 24 hours later, Hamas retaliating against the bombing and invading force with a couple of home made rockets.

I'm not proferring an opinion on the conflict, the Middle East is quite frankly a mess that I don't know enough about and there's wrongs on all sides, granted, but our media is definitely opinionated on the matter, and I can understand why. What's the US media saying? (I'll bet it's not "it's America's fault for abstaining," which is what they're saying over here. And again, yeah, I can see why.)

Way to harsh my squee, though, dudes. Gay and married still not a popular thing to be, apparently. Fuckers.

Come on!
*still crossing fingers for California*

Spoiler alert...

He's won, yes? Can I go to bed safely?

ETA: I love my psp auto-filling text into the location field. Oops.

SERIOUSLY, GO VOTE.

And if you already have and there's talk of queues in your area, go bring someone a cup of coffee, BRING PIE, go bring an old lady a folding chair, juggle, whatever the hell you want, go, go, go!

(Don't wear your Obama t-shirt while you're doing it, though. Electioneering is frowned upon, people, please remember that.)

People are calling Obama a Socialist, apparently. I think that's kind of funny, I wish he were, really, that would be awesome. But he's not. I said I'd write down what I believe is the deal with America, I don't want anyone to take offence, I just mean it as a starting point for debate, I'm perfectly willing to be persuaded and argued at in other directions, I'm just presenting a global view of how I, as an outsider with inside experience and connections, see America, in general. Not you, personally, whoever's reading, just the country, as a whole being, as it were.

Here's the thing with America. In America you can be whatever you want to be. You are all created equal. Everyone came to America with a dream and the ways and means and the hopes of making that dream a reality. It's a country based on IDEALS and HOPES and LIMITLESS POSSIBILITY. And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing, but it brings with it a flipside, and that is a deeply ingrained sense in a lot of the population that anyone out there who does NOT fulfill their American Dream, who is hard done by, poor, or falls by the wayside HAS BROUGHT IT UPON THEMSELVES somehow by not putting in enough effort. It's why the American belief system is competely incompatible with Socialism, because in order to embrace Socialism, one has to acknowledge that there are always going to be people out there who will not realise their potential, who through no fault of their own will run into trouble, or illness, or poverty, or discrimination or whatever and that it is the government's duty to take from the rich and successful and give to the poor and needy. Americans don't really embrace that idea, they're all about telling us how hard they've worked, how much their family has suffered, the hardship they've had to go through to become what they are today, and the idea that their hard work and hard earned dollars should now be used to help someone else in need, it just doesn't seem to sit quite right. And that's not because they're mean, or uncaring or unchristian, it's just a CONCEPT that doesn't quite ring true with their idealistic upbringing. It doesn't gel with their IDEALS. Because in an ideal world EVERYONE would achieve their potential, and be great and rich and successful and happy. In an IDEAL world the government doesn't NEED to intervene in any affairs of the people. Acknowledging that, maybe, yeah, the government should intervene, means acknowledging that it's NOT and ideal world out there, and that is something a lot of Americans have difficulty with.

It's a way of thinking that seeps into a lot of the issues that we, as Europeans with a vastly different and more pragmatic mindset, don't understand. In an ideal world, anyone who owns a gun is responsible with it and only uses it for shooting pesky foxes or whatever it is they have it for and therefore in an IDEAL world, everyone should be allowed to have a gun. Telling people they can't have a gun means admitting it's not an ideal world. Telling people they can have abortions means admitting that it's not an ideal world and that people get raped or are just plain fucking stupid when it comes to sex. It's a hard thing for Americans to do, they, on the whole, don't like it.

Now don't get me wrong, the American Dream mindset, the idea that you can work hard and be whatever it is you desire to be, that's a beautiful concept and it's brought about amazing innovation and creativity and thinking and all those things. And it's what makes Americans compete for scholarships and pageants and medals and lifetime achievement and employee of the month awards and all those things we don't have over here because we don't reward achievement and value achievement like you do. That idealism and general optimism of the American people (yeah, it's probably why we think you're so perky all the damn time, we're fucking CYNICAL, the Europeans, it's depressing as hell) is a WONDERFUL THING. But that flipside does exist, and it's why a lot of Americans think Socialism is a dirty word. Whereas I do not.

I realise that probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but there you go. My two cents.